The answer to this question would really depend on whether or not we’re talking about a domestic animal. I have to imagine that a wild fennec that felt the need to protect his or her young would probably bite really hard!
That could be not only a serious medical emergency, but also a situation that would raise some questions. Namely, why would anyone want to mess with actual live fennecs in the wild?
Domestic pet fennec foxes can certainly hurt just as badly as dogs if you were to anger one and the animal felt the need to defend itself. However, domestic ones also have a tendency to give soft affectionate nips.
This probably wouldn’t hurt much more than a similar little nip from a house cat or a pet dog. That being said, you do want to be careful around even the most domestic fennec foxes because they can have some pretty wild instincts and really should be treated with respect like any other animal.
Granted, I’ve never been bitten very hard by a fennec fox, but I’ve followed a number of animal experts who advise proper medical care if you were ever in a situation where one drew blood.
Why Do Fennec Foxes Bite?
Assuming a fennec is an otherwise healthy animal, the main reason one would bite a person is because they felt threatened. As long as you use proper handling techniques and don’t put your fox in a position where he or she feels like something is wrong, then you shouldn’t have to experience what this feels like!
On the other hand, some fennecs that have various diseases may bite because they live in a constant state of fear. From what I’ve read, this is much the same case with rabid dogs.
If you’re ever bitten by an animal that’s foaming at the mouth, then you need to seek professional help. That being said, I was surprised to learn that rabies isn’t really that common any more in North America and it’s almost completely unheard of among domestic fennec foxes!
Soft affectionate nips are a way for fennecs to show affection. Sometimes a mother will grab a young fennec by the scruff of his or her neck to carry them around.
While this isn’t normally considered a bite, a fennec who doesn’t know better might try to do that with a human they care about by mistake!
Do Fennec Foxes Have Sharp Teeth?
Their teeth are pretty sharp, but they’re not much different from any other members of the canid family of animals. Foxes, wolves, coyote, dogs and pretty much anything else you can think of from that same massive group share at least some part of their dentition, which means you’d want to treat any of their mouths with some well deserved respect!
In the wild, these teeth would be perfect for the kind of diet they have. Zoologists call fennec foxes omnivores, which means they eat both plant material as well as meat.
Since they live in a desert climate, they often have to consume as much food as possible in order to get a little water with it. Digging around for insects, rodents and lizards means that they need relatively sharp teeth and claws in order to survive.
You might find that fennec fox teeth feel a bit sharper than most other animals you come into contact with. That apparently has more to do with the fact that their teeth don’t get ground down as much in captivity as other animals do, but this is going to depend a lot on their diet.
Do Fennec Foxes Attack Humans?
Despite all the searching I was doing, it was really hard to find many credible reports of fennec foxes in the wild attacking humans. They have a fairly large range across Northern Africa, so I figure that if they were going to try to attack humans they would have had plenty of space to do it.
A majority of the credible reports I found involved animals being mishandled in domestic captive environments, which is another example of how you really need to be careful if you keep an exotic pet like a fennec. Make sure to treat your animal right so this kind of thing doesn’t even become an issue.
In general, trying to take a fennec’s food away or doing anything that could be deemed threatening could be asking for a bite. You’ll also want to be careful not to hurt your animal while you’re grooming them or doing their nails, since many don’t like clippers.
How to Train Your Fennec Fox Not to Bite
From what I’ve found, the way to teach a fennec fox not to bite is very similar to how you’d train pretty much any other kind of canine!
Like Djinn’s owner says, one of the big ways to teach your fennec fox not to bite is to stop food agression and have them properly socialized. You’ll also want to teach them how to sit and walk with a leash much like you would with any other domestic animal that you planned on keeping like this.
Check out a great overview here, that focuses specifically on these core issues:
That being said, you might find that there’s not much you can do about some types of play biting. Focus on reducing the problem behaviors first so that you can bond with your fennec fox and become better socialized over all.
Lucy the Fennec Fox is something of a YouTube celebrity, but she’s never quite gotten this down either:
Make sure to do any training in regards to biting early enough that the instruction sticks as well. Fennec foxes are best raised from pups so they don’t get too wild early on.
Some fennec foxes tend to get grumpier as they get older, which makes it all the more vital that you get them to stop biting early on. That helps them age more gracefully.
